LIBRARV 


University  of  California, 


Class 


The  German  Influence 


ON 


Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge 


AN  abridgment  OF  A 

THESIS 

Presented  to  the  Faculty  of  the  Department  of  Philosophy  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania  in  Partial  Fulfilment  of  the  Requirements 
for  the  Degree  of  Doctor  of  Philosophy 


BY 
JOHN    LOUIS    HANEY 


0>^  THE 


PHILADELPHIA 
1902 


CONTENTS 

Page 

Before  the  Visit  to  Germany  (1772-1798) 3 

Coleridge  in  Germany  (1798-1799) 9 

Immediate  Results  (1799-1800) 13 

The  Wallenstein  Translation  (1800) 19 

The  Years  of  Unrest  ( 1800-1816) 24 

The  Sage  of  Highgate  ( 1816-1834) 32 

The  German  Influence  on  Coleridge 38 


117883 


THE   GERMAN   INFLUENCE   ON    SAMUEL 
TAYLOR   COLERIDGE. 

The  study  of  comparative  literature  has  done  much  to 
estabhsh  the  inter-relationship  of  early  literary  monuments, 
and  to  illustrate  the  adaptations  and  variations  of  themes 
and  episodes  in  the  ages  when  sources  w^ere  relatively  few 
and  were  widely  known  among  the  learned  classes.  When, 
however,  we  carry  our  researches  into  more  recent  fields, 
and  seek  to  trace  the  genesis  of  the  complex  literary  utter- 
ances of  a  modern  writer,  we  are  frequently  confronted  by 
a  bewildering  array  of  possible  sources  and  influences.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  writer's  tastes,  his  studies,  his  travels,  the 
books  in  his  library,  and  a  score  of  other  factors  are  of 
invaluable  aid  in  determining  the  character  and  extent  of 
his  indebtedness  to  previous  authors;  yet,  even  with  the 
greatest  care,  the  critic  who  undertakes  to  trace  a  particular 
influence  is  prone  to  exaggerate  its  importance.  In  his 
desire  to  strengthen  his  chain  of  evidence,  he  refers  every 
utterance  of  the  writer  to  its  nearest  analogue  in  the  sus- 
pected source;  and  when  that  source  happens  to  be  a  great 
national  literature,  it  is  a  remarkable  thought  or  bit  of 
imagery  that  cannot  be  traced  to  some  more  or  less  plausible 
original. 

In  the  case  of  Samuel  Taylor  Coleridge,  the  temptation 
to  find  a  strong  German  influence  is  unusually  great.  He 
read  innumerable  volumes  of  German  poetry,  criticism,  and 
philosophy,  and  his  own  works  abound  in  borrowings  and 
adaptations  from  German  originals.  The  results  of  this 
extensive  appropriation  are  undoubtedly  evident  in  most  of 
Coleridge's  later  works;  but  to  insist  that  these  German 
influences  are  manifest  in  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient  Mariner, 


2  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Christabcl,  and  Ktibla  Khan  is  evidently  too  great  a  demand 
upon  the  credulity  of  dispassionate  readers. 

The  foundations  of  our  attributed  influences  are  neces- 
sarily the  author's  own  acknowledgements,  direct  and  indi- 
rect, supplemented  by  those  obligations  that  can  be  estab- 
lished beyond  a  possibility  of  doubt.  The  careful  critic  is 
mindful  of  the  line  of  demarcation  between  the  proved  and 
the  probable  or  possible.  The  acceptance  of  the  former  is 
incumbent  upon  all ;  the  weight  of  the  latter  rests  mainly 
on  the  evidence  and  the  authority  of  the  critic. 

In  the  thesis  abridged  in  the  following  pages  an  attempt 
was  made  to  show  the  real  character  of  the  influence  of 
German  literature  upon  Coleridge  by  discussing  ( i )  Cole- 
ridge's own  utterances  concerning  German  authors  and 
their  writings;  (2)  the  evident  literary  influences,  whether 
acknowledged  or  not;  (3)  the  probable  or  possible  influ- 
ences that  have  been  advanced  and  supported  by  various 
critics. 


BEFORE  THE  VISIT  TO  GERMANY    (1772-1798). 

The  accounts  of  Coleridge's  omnivorous  reading  in  his 
boyhood  days  at  Ottery  and  afterwards  at  Christ's  Hospital 
record  no  works  by  German  authors.  The  first  apparent 
reference  to  a  German  writer  was  at  the  age  of  twenty-two, 
when,  as  a  student  at  Cambridge,  Coleridge  wrote  (Novem- 
ber, 1794)  a  letter  to  Southey  describing  his  first  acquain- 
tance with  Die  Rdiibcr:  '"Tis  past  one  o'clock  in  the  morn- 
ing. I  sat  down  at  twelve  o'clock  to  read  the  '  Robbers '  of 
Schiller.  I  had  read,  chill  and  trembling,  when  I  came  to 
the  part  where  the  Moor  fixes  a  pistol  over  the  robbers  who 
are  asleep.  I  could  read  no  more.  My  God,  Southey,  who 
is  this  Schiller,  this  convulser  of  the  heart?  Did  he  write 
his  tragedy  amid  the  yelling  of  fiends?  .  .  .  Why  have  we 
ever  called  Milton  sublime?  that  Count  de  Moor  horrible 
wielder  of  heart  withering  virtues  ?  Satan  is  scarcely  quali- 
fied to  attend  his  execution  as  gallows  chaplain."^ 

Coleridge,  who  read  the  play  in  Lord  Woodhouselee's 
(1792)  translation,  gave  fuller  expression  of  his  enthusiasm 
in  his  sonnet  To  the  Author  of  'The  Robbers'-  which  was 
probably  written  soon  after,  and  was  published  in  his  Poems 
(1796)  with  the  following  note:  "One  night  in  winter,  on 
leaving  a  College-friend's  room,  with  whom  I  had  supped, 
I  carelessly  took  away  with  me  'The  Robbers,'  a  drama  the 
very  name  of  which  I  had  never  before  heard  of :  A  winter 
midnight — the  wind  high — and  'The  Robbers'  for  the  first 
time!  The  readers  of  Schiller  will  conceive  what  I  felt. 
Schiller  introduces  no  supernatural  beings ;  yet  his  human 
beings  agitate  and  astonish  more  than  all  the  goblin  rout — 
even  of  Shakespeare." 

^Letters,  ed.  E.  H.  Coleridge,  I,  96-97. 
^Poet.  Works,  ed.  Campbell,  pp.  34,  572. 
3 


4  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge  soon  familiarized  himself  with  other  works  of 
Schiller  that  appeared  in  translation  about  this  time.  In  his 
Condones  ad  Popiihim  (1795)  in  condemning  the  British 
recruiting  methods,  he  wrote :  "  Schiller,  a  German  himself, 
(beneath  the  tremendous  sublimity  of  whose  genius  we 
have  glowed  and  shuddered,  while  we  perused  'The  Rob- 
bers,') in  his  tragedy  of  'Cabal  and  Love'  represents  a 
German  prince  as  having  sent  a  casket  of  jewels  to  his  con- 
cubine. On  her  enquiring  what  might  be  the  price  of  the 
jewels,  she  is  told  they  were  received  from  the  English  gov- 
ernment, for  seven  thousand  young  men  sent  to  America."^ 
This  was  followed  by  a  passage  evidently  quoted  from  [J. 
R.  Timaus']  translation  (1795)  of  the  play.  In  The  Plot 
Discovered  (1795)  he  again  referred  to  the  "tremendous 
sublimity"  of  Schiller.^ 

A  year  later,  Coleridge  published  the  short-lived  Watch- 
man. The  third  number  contained  a  "Historical  Sketch  of 
the  Manners  and  Religion  of  the  Ancient  Germans,  Intro- 
ductory to  his  Sketch  of  the  Manners,  Religion  and  Politics 
of  Present  Germany."  The  untimely  death  of  the  paper 
prevented  the  completion  of  the  plan.  There  was  a  passing 
allusion  to  Goethe's  Wertcr^  in  one  of  the  later  numbers. 

In  a  letter  of  April  i,  1796,  we  find  Coleridge's  first  ref- 
erence to  Lessing.  He  wrote:  "The  most  formidable  infi- 
del is  Lessing,  the  author  of  Emilia  Galotti;  I  ought  to  have 
written  ivas,  for  he  is  dead.  His  book  is  not  yet  trans- 
lated, and  it  is  entitled,  in  German,  'Fragments  of  an 
Anonymous  Author.'  It  unites  the  wit  of  Voltaire  with  the 
subtlety  of  Hume  and  the  profound  erudition  of  our  Lard- 
ner.  I  had  some  thoughts  of  translating  it  with  an  answer, 
but  gave  it  up,  lest  men,  whose  tempers  and  hearts  incline 
them  to  disbelief,  should  get  hi^ld  of  it;  and.  though  the 

^Essays  on  his  Oivn  Times,  ed.  Sara  Coleridge,  I,  50-51- 

'Ibid.,  I,  p.  70. 

*Omui(i)ia,  ed.  T.  Ashe,  pp.  378-379. 


BEFORE    THE    VISIT    TO    GERMANY.  5 

answers  are  satisfactory  to  my  own  mind,  they  may  not  be 
equally  so  to  the  minds  of  others."^ 

In  May,  1796,  when  he  recognized  that  The  Watchman 
was  a  failure,  Coleridge  communicated  his  immediate  plans 
to  his  friend  Poole:  "I  am  studying  German,  and  in  about 
six  weeks  shall  be  able  to  read  that  language  with  tolerable 
fluency.  Now  I  have  some  thoughts  of  making  a  proposal 
to  Robinson,  the  great  London  bookseller,  of  translating  all 
the  works  of  Schiller,  which  would  make  a  portly  quarto, 
on  condition  that  he  should  pay  my  journey  and  my  wife's 
to  and  from  Jena,  a  cheap  German  University  where  Schiller 
resides,  and  allow  me  two  guineas  each  quarto  sheet,  which 
would  maintain  me.  If  I  could  realize  this  scheme,  I 
should  there  study  chemistry  and  anatomy,  and  bring  over 
with  me  all  the  works  of  Semler  and  Michaelis,  the  German 
theologians,  and  of  Kant,  the  great  German  metaphysi- 
cian."^ Nothing  came  of  this  proposal.  A  few  months 
later  (July,  1796)  Charles  Lamb  wrote  to  Coleridge: 
"Have  you  read  the  Ballad  called  'Leonora'  in  the  second 
Number  of  the  Monthly  Magazine?  If  you  have  !  !  !  ! 
There  is  another  fine  song,  from  the  same  author  (Burger) 
in  the  third  Number,  of  scarce  inferior  merit." ^  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  Coleridge  left  no  record  of  having  read 
Leonora  at  that  time,  much  stress  has  been  laid  on  Lamb's 
letter  by  the  critics.  In  a  note  appended  to  a  letter  of 
December,  1796,  Coleridge  quoted  a  passage  from  Voss's 
Luise,  and  observed  that  Moses  Mendelssohn  was  deemed 
Germany's  "profoundest  metaphysician,  with  the  exception 
of  the  most  unintelligible  Immanuel  Kant."* 

In  his  unsuccessful  tragedy  Osorio  {17^7)  the  first  evi- 
dences   of    German     influence    are     manifest.     Professor 

1  Works,  ed.  Shedd,  III,  634-635. 

'^Jbid.,   Ill,  638-639.     See  also   Brandl,   S.   T.   C.   luid  die  englische  Ro- 
mantik,  or  Lady  Eastlake's  translation,  pp.   157:  151. 
'  Lamb's  Letters,  ed.  Ainger,  I,  p.  30. 
*  Letters,  op.  cit.,  I,  203-204. 


O  SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE. 

BrandP  investigated  the  sources  of  Osorio  and  made  clear 
Coleridge's  obligation  to  Schiller's  Dcr  Geisfcrschcr  and  Die 
Rdiiher.  The  former  work  was  translated  into  English 
(1795)  by  [D.  Boileau]  as  The  Ghostscer,  or  the  Appari- 
tionist.  The  first  three  acts  of  Osorio  are  based  upon  part 
of  the  Sicilian's  Tale  in  The  Ghostseer,  but  the  catastrophe 
and  certain  details  were  necessarily  changed.  The  influence 
of  Die  Riinber  is  quite  evident  throughout,  notably  in  the 
dungeon  scene.  The  play  was  set  in  the  prevalent  style  of 
the  School  of  Terror,  with  the  machinery  of  the  Inquisition 
and  its  dark,  mysterious  personages. 

In  November,  1797,  Coleridge  wrote  to  Cottle  that  he 
was  translating  Wieland's  O heron,  but  nothing  further  was 
heard  of  it.  About  this  time.  The  Rime  of  the  Ancient 
Mariner  and  (probably)  Chrisfabcl  were  begun.  It  is  likely 
that  The  Wanderings  of  Cain — an  exquisite  prose  fragment 
in  avowed  imitation  of  Gessner's  Death  of  Abel — was  writ- 
ten early  in  1798.  To  this  same  brief  epoch  of  golden 
poetry  belongs  the  witching  melody  of  Kubla  Khan. 

The  idea  of  visiting  Germany  with  the  Wordsworths  took 
definite  shape  before  March,  1798,  and  arrangements  were 
completed  during  the  summer.  Early  in  September,  a  few 
days  before  their  departure,  the  Lyrical  Ballads  were  pub- 
lished. The  reception  accorded  to  that  memorable  volume 
was  unfavorable,  but  not  as  hostile  as  most  literary  histori- 
ans would  lead  us  to  believe.  The  significant  point  of  the 
contemporary  criticism  lay  in  the  general  disapprobation  of 
The  Ancient  Mariner.  Soutbey-  called  the  poem  "a  Dutch 
attempt  at  German  subHmity,"  and  this  opinion  was  echoed 
in  the  Analytical  Rcviczv;'  which  found  in  the  poem  "more 
of  the  e.xtravagance  of  a  mad  German  poet,  than  the  sim- 
plicity of  our  ancient  ballad  writers."     Charles  Lamb  scored 

'  Brandl,  op.  cit..  171-177:167-170. 

2  Critical  Re,:.  XXIV,  n.  s.,  197-204.  C£.  Robberd's  Memoir  of  IVilliam 
Taylor,  I,  p.  223. 

!>.4nalylicnl  Rev..  XXVIII,  p.  583- 


BEFORE    THE    VISIT    TO    GERMANY.  7 

Southey  for  the  impertinent  criticism:  "If  you  wrote  that 
review  in  the  Critical  Rcvieiv,  I  am  sorry  you  are  so  sparing 
of  praise  to  the  Ancient  Mar  in  ere.  So  far  from  calHng  it 
as  you  do,  with  some  wnt  but  more  severity,  a  'Dutch  at- 
tempt,' etc.,  I  call  it  a  right  English  attempt,  and  a  success- 
ful one,  to  dethrone  German  sublimity."  ' 

No  thorough  and  systematic  study  of  the  sources  of  The 
Ancient  Mariner  has  yet  been  made,  though  Cruikshank's 
dream,  Shelvocke's  Voyages,  James'  Strange  and  Danger- 
ous Voyage,  and  the  letter  of  St.  Paulinus  to  Macarius  have 
all  been  duly  considered.  The  only  question  of  present 
interest  is  Coleridge's  imputed  obligation  to  Biirger's 
Lenore.  Emile  Legouis  wrote^  that  Coleridge  was  "full  of 
enthusiasm  for  Burger's  Lenore  when  he  undertook  The 
Ancient  Mariner,"  but  mentioned  no  authority  for  that  state- 
ment. Similarly,  Professor  Brandl  ^  found  both  direct  and 
indirect  influence  of  Lenore  in  TJie  Ancient  Mariner,  as  well 
as  in  Christabel,  Kuhla  Khan,  Love,  and  The  Ballad  of  the 
Dark  Ladie.  While  it  is  probable  that  Coleridge  knew  the 
popular  Lenore  in  translation,  we  are  hardly  justified  in 
claiming  that  he  was  "full  of  enthusiasm"  for  a  poem  which 
he  did  not  mention ;  and  Professor  Brandl's  only  cited  objec- 
tive authority  is  Lamb's  letter  asking  Coleridge  if  he  had 
read  Leonora.  Tlie  latter  critic  sought  to  establish  the 
"influence"  by  citing  such  analogies  as  the  sinking  of  the 
ship  at  the  end  of  The  Ancient  Mariner,  and  the  disappear- 
ance of  the  horse  at  the  end  of  Lenore. 

Lamb  exercised  his  rare  critical  faculty  when  he  rebuked 
Southey's  sneer,  and  , defended  The  Ancient  Mariner  as  a 
"right  English  attempt."  Recently,  Professor  Beers,*  in 
taking  exception  to  Southey's  remark,  wrote :  "The  Mariner 
is  not  in  the  least  German,  and  when  he  wrote  it  Coleridge 

'  Letters,  ed.  Ainger,  I,  p.  95. 

^  Early  years  of  Wordsworth,  p.  421. 

^Lenore  in  England,  in  Erich  Schmidt's  Charaktcristikcn,  p.  247. 

*  A  History  of  Eng.  Romanticism  in  the  Eighteenth  Century,  p.  419. 


S  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

had  not  been  in  Germany  and  did  not  know  the  language." 
The  statement  is  vaHd,  though  the  reasoning  is  inconclu- 
sive ;  in  the  preceding  year,  Coleridge  had  known  enough  of 
translated  German  literature  to  borrow  extensively  from 
Schiller  for  his  Osorio.  There  is  no  reason  why  Coleridge 
should  not  have  imitated  Lenore,  if  he  had  been  so  inclined; 
but  the  fact  that  such  an  imputed  imitation  explains  nothing 
that  is  not  otherwise  explicable,  afifords  small  excuse  for 
insisting  upon  such  an  influence.  The  same  holds  true  of 
Kiihla  Khan;  if  we  must  accept  the  line,  "By  woman  wail- 
ing for  her  demon-lover"  as  a  direct  influence  of  Lenore, 
to  what  source  shall  we  turn  for  the  similar  idea,  "And 
mingle  foul  embrace  with  fiends  of  Hell"  expressed  in  the 
sonnet  on  Mrs.  Siddons,  which  was  written  by  Coleridge 
and  Lamb  two  years  before  any  English  version  of  Lenore 
was  printed  ? 

Compared  to  the  indisputable  influence  of  Schiller  on 
Osorio,  and  Coleridge's  frequent  reference  to  that  poet,  the 
plea  for  Lenore  influence  on  the  1797-98  poems  seems  far- 
fetched ;  the  motive  of  the  maiden  and  her  ghostly  lover  was 
present  in  English  balladry  long  before  the  time  of  Biirger 
and  was  familiar  to  every  reader  of  Percy's  RcUques. 
Numerous  sources,  quite  as  probable  as  Lenore,  could  be 
mentioned,  yet  there  would  be  no  actual  gain  in  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  genesis  of  the  poems. 

We  have  seen  that  Coleridge  possessed  some  knowledge 
of  German  literature  and  made  several  attempts  to  study 
the  language  before  his  departure  for  Germany  in  1798. 
The  influence  of  Schiller  was  paramount,  but  he  also  knew 
something  of  Lessing,  Voss,  Wieland,  and  Goethe.  Schil- 
ler's influence  was  important,  since  Coleridge  regarded  him 
as  one  of  the  greatest  of  living  poets  and  dramatists;  but 
this  admiration  soon  waned,  and  Coleridge  assumed  a  more 
conservative  attitude  even  before  he  visited  Germany. 


COLERIDGE  IN  GERMANY    (1798-1799). 

There  is  considerable  material^  for  an  account  of  Cole- 
ridge's visit  to  Germany,  but  large  gaps  still  remain  in  the 
narrative.  It  is  an  important  period  in  Coleridge's  career,^ 
marking  the  turning  point  from  his  poetical  activity  to  his 
interest  in  philosophy  and  criticism.  The  two  epochs  are 
not  distinct,  as  Coleridge  never  lost  that  catholicity  of  spirit 
which  made  him  the  greatest  of  living  minds  in  the  eyes  of 
his  friends  and  contemporaries.  Yet  an  analysis  of  his 
mental  development,  as  indicated  by  Professor  Brandl  and 
others^  must  lead  to  the  accepted  conclusion. 

The  party  that  sailed  on  September  16,  1798,  from  Yar- 
mouth on  the  Hamburg  packet  included  William  and  Dor- 
othy Wordsworth,  Coleridge,  and  the  latter's  friend,  John 
Chester,  who  remained  with  him  throughout  the  German 
visit.  The  voyage  was  admirably  described  in  the  first  of 
Satyrane's  Letters,  printed  in  The  Friend,  and  afterwards 
with  the  Biographia  Literaria.^  They  reached  Hamburg 
on  Wednesday,  September  19,  and  spent  the  first  few  days 
in  Germany  as  described  in  Satyrane's  second  letter  and 
Dorothy  Wordsworth's  journal.  On  Thursday,  Words- 
worth and  Coleridge  met  Klopstock's  brother.  In  describ- 
ing a  fine  portrait  of  Lessing  at  the  latter's  home,  Coleridge 
disclaimed  all  previous  knowledge  of  Lessing  "but  his  name, 
and  that  he  was  a  German  writer  of  eminence."*  Evidently 
he  had  forgotten  his  intention  to  translate  Fragment e  eines 
Ungenannten  in  1796. 

^Letters,  I,  257-258. 

2  See  Quarterly  Rev.,  CLXV,  p.  60  seq.,  Westminster  Rev.,  CLXV,  p.  528 
seq.,  and  Edinburgh  Rev.,  CLXII,  p.  301  seq. 
"  Works,  III,  505-554. 
*Ibid.,Ul,  p.  525. 

9 


lO  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

On  the  following  day  (September  21)  Coleridge  and 
Wordsworth  visited  the  poet  Klopstock,  and  had  the  mem- 
orable interview  that  is  reproduced  from  Wordsworth's 
notes  in  Satyrane's  third  letter.'  Both  poets  were  disap- 
pointed when  they  perceived  Klopstock's  ignorance  of  early 
German  literature,  and  his  uncompromising  attitude  toward 
Schiller  and  other  romantic  writers.  Coleridge  told  Klop- 
stock that  he  intended  to  write  a  history  of  German  poetry 
and  would  gladly  translate  some  of  the  latter's  odes  as 
specimens.  Klopstock  begged  him  to  do  so,  in  order  to 
atone  for  the  miserable  translations  that  had  appeared ;  but 
like  many  other  plans  of  Coleridge's,  it  was  never  executed. 

On  September  23,  Coleridge  went  to  Ratzeburg  wuth  a 
letter  of  introduction  from  Klopstock,  and  spent  several 
days  in  making  arrangements  to  settle  there  for  a  protracted 
stay.  During  his  absence,  Wordsworth  had  two  more  in- 
terviews with  the  venerable  German  poet.  Coleridge  re- 
turned on  the  27th  and  left  for  Ratzeburg  on  October  i, 
accompanied  by  the  faithful  Chester.  Two  days  later  the 
Wordsworths  started  for  Goslar,  where  they  spent  a  dreary 
but  industrious  winter.  Coleridge  has  given  us  an  interest- 
ing account'^  of  his  life  in  the  home  of  the  good  pastor  of 
Ratzeburg.  He  applied  himself  diligently  to  the  study  of 
German  and  at  the  same  time  learned  much  of  German 
domestic  life.  He  enjoyed  the  Christmas  ceremonials  and 
wrote  home  the  letters  which  afterwards  appeared  in  The 
Friend  as  Christmas  zvithin  Doors  in  the  North  of  Germany, 
and  Christmas  out  of  Doors.^ 

1  In  using  these  notes,  Coleridge  allowed  the  pronoun  of  the  first  person 
to  stand  as  Wordsworth  wrote  it,  and  used  the  same  for  himself.  The 
confusion  is  best  overcome  by  referring  to  the  original  notes  as  printed  in 
Knight's  Life  of  Wordsivorth,  I,  171-177.  Satyrane's  third  letter  reproduces 
Wordsworth's  notes  of  two  subsequent  interviews  with  KIoi>stock.  at  which 
Coleridge  was  not  present. 

^  Works,  III,  p.  300,  note;  Letters,  I,  262-288. 

i  Works,  II,  .335-338. 


COLERIDGE    IN    GERMANY.  H 

Early  in  January,  Coleridge  wrote'  to  Poole  that  he  in- 
tended to  proceed  to  Gottingen  and  undertake  some  lucra- 
tive work.  He  proposed  to  write  a  Life  of  Lessing,  with 
an  account  of  the  rise  and  present  state  of  German  literature. 
Moreover,  he  declared  that  he  had  already  written  "a  little 
life  from  three  different  biographies,"  and  intended  to  read 
all  of  Lessing's  works  at  Gottingen  in  chronological  order. 
Coleridge  left  Ratzeburg  on  February  6,  and,  after  a  short 
stay  at  Hanover,  reached  Gottingen  on  the  12th,  carrying 
letters  of  introduction  to  Professors  Heyne  and  Blumen- 
bach.  A  few  days  later  he  matriculated  at  the  University 
and  began  serious  study.  Coleridge's  record  of  his  own 
industry  is  well  known.^  His  preparation  for  a  "Life  of 
Lessing"  was  supplemented  by  extensive  reading  of  meta- 
physics, wdiich  soon  held  him  with  a  relentless  grasp.  After 
three  months  of  study,  he  joined  a  small  party  of  friends  for 
the  memorable  ascent  of  the  Brocken  which  resulted  in  a 
most  exquisite  literary  memorial — his  Fragment  of  a  Jour- 
nal of  a  Tour  over  the  Brocken}  At  Elbingerode,  Cole- 
ridge wrote  the  lines  beginning,  "  I  stood  on  Brocken's  sov- 
ran height"  in  the  inn  album.  After  visiting  Blankenburg, 
Werningerode,  Goslar,  and  Klausthal,  the  party  returned  to 
Gottingen. 

On  June  23,  a  farewell  supper  was  tendered  to  Coleridge 
and  Chester  at  Professor  Blumenbach's.  Before  leaving 
for  England,  #iey  spent  several  days  at  Wolfenbiittel,  where 
Coleridge  made  inquiries  concerning  Lessing,  and  made  the 
acquaintance  of  Professor  Zimmermann.  They  reached 
England  some  time  during  July. 

Coleridge  had  been  in  Germany  somewhat  over  nine 
months.  What  he  accomplished  there  is  best  summarized 
in  a  letter*  that  he  wrote  to  Josiah  Wedgwood.     He  de- 

^  Letters,  I,  267-270.  « 

^  Works,  III,  301-303.  See  also  Carlyon,  Early  Years  and  Late  Reflec- 
tions, I,  31-33,  etc. 

^Miscellanies,  ed.  Ashe,  pp.  187-197. 
<  Cottle,  Reminiscences,  pp.  316-317. 


12  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

clared  that  he  had  learned  the  language  and  could  speak  it 
fluently,  though  with  "hideous"  pronunciation;  that  he  had 
studied  the  German  dialects ;  that  he  had  attended  regularly 
the  lectures  on  physiology,  anatomy,  and  natural  history; 
that  he  had  collected  material  for  a  history  of  belles-lettres 
in  Germany  before  the  time  of  Lessing ;  and,  finally,  that  he 
had  made  large  collections  for  a  "Life  of  Lessing."  He 
concluded  with  the  significant  sentence :  "  I  shall  have 
bought  thirty  pounds  worth  of  books,  chiefly  metaphysics 
and  with  a  view  to  the  one  work,  to  which  I  hope  to  dedicate 
in  silence,  the  prime  of  my  life;  but  I  believe  and  indeed 
doubt  not,  that  before  Christmas  I  shall  have  repaid  my- 
self." 

It  is  thus  clear,  that  even  before  leaving  Germany,  Cole- 
ridge was  intent  upon  that  elaborate  philosophical  magnum 
opus  to  which  he  devoted  the  best  portion  of  his  life,  but 
which  was  never  realized  to  justify  his  desertion  of  the 
poetic  muse.  His  effort  to  formulate  an  inclusive,  unas- 
sailable system  was  a  worthy  ambition ;  yet  the  attempt  was 
not  made  without  a  great  sacrifice. 


IMMEDIATE  RESULTS    (1799-1800). 

While  Coleridge  was  engaged  in  his  Hterary  and  philo- 
sophical studies  in  Germany,  he  did  not  altogether  abandon 
poetry.  He  wrote  a  small  number  of  original  poems,  and 
made  half  a  score  of  translations  from  various  German 
poets.  Some  of  the  latter  were  perhaps  written  after  his 
return  to  England.  Campbell  has  given  the  conjectural 
date  (?  1799)  to  most  of  them.  They  are  best  discussed 
in  the  order  in  which  they  appear  in  his  edition  of  Coleridge's 
poetical  works. 

When  Coleridge  sent  the  original  Hexameters^  beginning 
"William,  my  teacher,  my  friend!"  to  Wordsworth  at  Gos- 
lar,  he  wrote  in  the  accompanying  letter^  that  "our  lan- 
guage is,  in  some  instances,  better  adapted  to  these  metres 
than  the  German."  The  lines  possess  no  intrinsic  merit, 
and  are  not  all  metrically  correct.  Coleridge's  experiment 
was  evidently  prompted  by  the  extensive  imitation  of  the 
metre  among  German  poets.  The  hexameter  Hyum  to  the 
Earth^  is  a  somewhat  amplified  translation,  in  the  original 
metre,  of  part  of  Stolberg's  Hymne  an  die  Erde.  It  was 
regarded  as  an  original  poem  until  the  appearance  of  Freili- 
grath's  Tauchnitz  edition  (1852)  of  Coleridge.  Freiligrath 
was  likewise  the  first  to  show  that  the  Catnllian  Hende- 
casyllabics'^  are  a  free  translation  of  the  beginning  of  Mat- 
thisson's  Milesisehes  Mdrchen.  Brandl^  stated  incorrectly 
that  the  poem  is  translated  in  the  metre  of  the  original, 
Coleridge  substituted  a  dactyl  for  a  two-syllable  foot  at  the 

'^  Poet.  Works,  pp.  137-138. 

2  Knight,  Life  of  Wordsworth,  I,  p.   185. 

'Poet.  Works,  pp.  138-139,  615. 

*  Poet.  Works,  pp.  140,  616. 

5  Erandl,  op.  cit.,  pp.  264  :  249. 

13 


14  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

beginning  of  each  verse,  hence  twelve  instead  of  eleven  syl- 
lables. A  variant  text  appeared  in  Cottle's  Reminiscences^ 
with  the  more  appropriate  title,  The  English  Duodecasyl- 
lable. 

Other  translations  were  for  a  long  time  regarded  as  orig- 
inal poems.  The  couplets  describing  The  Homeric  Hexa- 
meter and  The  Ovidian  Elegiac  Metre^  respectively  were 
not  recognized  as  translations  from  Schiller  until  1847,  ^^'^ 
even  then  the  originals  were  printed  in  the  notes  without 
comment.  In  the  case  of  The  British  Striplings  War- 
Song^ — a  translation  of  Stolberg's  Lied  ciucs  deutschen 
Knahen — there  was  an  acknowledgment  on  the  original 
draft  of  the  poem,  which  is  now  in  the  British  Museum,  but 
the  indebtedness  was  not  mentioned  when  the  poem  was 
printed  in  The  Morning  Post  and  in  The  Annual  Anthology. 
The  original  was  written  in  ballad-metre.  Coleridge  pre- 
served the  quatrain  form  and  wrote,  not  "wooden  hexa- 
meters," as  Brandl*  says,  but  a  flowing  anapaestic  tetra- 
meter, with  the  common  trochaic  substitution  in  the  first 
foot  of  several  verses.  The  lines  On  a  Cataract^  are  an 
elaboration,  rather  than  a  translation  of  Stolberg's  Unster- 
blicher  Jilngling. 

Occasionally  Coleridge  was  careful  to  acknowledge  his 
obligations.  Tell's  Birthplace^'  a  fairly  close  translation  in 
the  original  metres  of  Stolberg's  Bci  Wilhclm  Tells  Gchurts- 
statte  ini  Kanton  Uri,  was  first  printed  in  Sibylline  Leaves 
(1817)  as  "Imitated  from  Stolberg."  In  the  same  collec- 
tion appeared  the  translation  of  Schiller's  Dithyrambe  as 
The  Visit  of  the  Gods,  imitated  from  Schiller  J  Coleridge 
followed  the  original  quite  closely,  save  that  he  replaced 

'  Cottle,  p.  96. 

'Poet.   Works,  pp.   140,  616. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.  141,  617. 

♦  Brandl,  pp.  263  :  248. 

^Poet.  Works,  pp.   141-142,  618. 

^Ibid..  pp.   142,  618. 

''Ibid.,  pp.   142-143,  619. 


IMMEDIATE    RESULTS.  15 

Schiller's  short  seventh  and  eighth  Hnes  of  each  stanza  by  a 
single  long  line.  Crabb  Robinson  recorded^  that  Coleridge 
quoted  Schiller's  poem  on  November  15,  1810,  and  added: 
"He  has  since  translated  it."  This  evidently  contradicts 
Campbell's  date — ?  1799.  It  is  probable  that  the  same  date, 
appended  to  Coleridge's  translation  of  the  first  stanza  of 
Mignon's  Song  from  Goethe's  IVilhehn  Meister,  is  also 
much  too  early  for  that  fragment. 

Mutual  Passion^  appeared  in  The  Courier  in  181 1  and 
was  reprinted  in  Sibylline  Leaves  as  "a  song  modernized 
v^ith  some  additions  from  one  of  our  elder  poets."  Camp- 
bell supposed  that  an  English  poet  was  meant,  but,  in  lieu 
of  anything  better,  accepted  Professor  Brandl's  statement 
that  the  poem  was  an  "imitation  of  the  old-fashioned  rhymes 
which  introduce  Minnesangs  Friihling."'  Dr.  Garnett 
pointed  out*  that  the  poem  was  merely  a  revision  of  A 
Nymph's  Passion  from  Ben  Jonson's  Underzvoods.  About 
half  of  the  verses  of  Jonson's  poem  have  been  "improved." 

The  Water  Ballad^  which  appeared  in  The  Athenceum 
in  1 83 1,  was  not  included  among  Coleridge's  poems  until 
1877.  Its  source  was  unknown,  and  Campbell  printed  it 
among  the  German  translations,  with  the  date — ?  1799. 
Hutchinson*^  in  1893  showed  that  it  was  a  poor  translation 
of  E.  de  Planard's  Barcarolle  de  Marie.  In  Gustav  Mas- 
son's  La  Lyre  Frangaise''  the  original  is  dated  1826. 
Hutchinson  suggests  that  the  song  may  be  the  sole  trace  of 
stage.  It  is  true  that  in  181 2  Coleridge  thought  of  attempt- 
ing melodrama  or  comic  opera  f  but  he  probably  entertained 
no  such  plans  in  1826  or  thereafter. 

'  Diary,  etc.,  I,  p.  196. 
'Poet.  Works,  pp.  143,  619. 

*  Brandl,  pp.  263  :  248. 

T  The  Athenceum,  1897,  II,  p.  885.     Cf.  ibid.,  1898,  I,  24.  "; 

^  Poet.  Works,  pp.  143,  619. 
^The  Academy,  1893,  I,  p.  481. 
'  Masson,  op.  cit.,  p.  189. 

*  Crabb  Robinson,  Diary,  I,  p.  272. 


1 6  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Names^  translated  from  Lessing's  Die  Naynen,  always 
appeared  in  Coleridge's  works  without  acknowledgment  to 
Lessing.  Cottle,  who  printed  a  varying  text  of  the  epi- 
gram" recorded  that  Coleridge  expressed  his  intention  of 
translating  the  whole  of  Lessing.  Cottle  merely  smiled  and 
tells  us  that  "Coleridge  understood  the  symbol  and  smiled 
in  return." 

The  Translation  of  a  Passage  in  Ottfried's  Metrical  Para- 
phrase of  the  Gospel'^  was  a  direct  result  of  Coleridge's  read- 
ings in  Old  High  German.  Professor  Brandl*  connected 
it  with  the  night-scene  in  Christahel,  and  with  the  Christmas 
Carol  which  Coleridge  afterwards  wrote.  Its  relation  to 
Christahel  is  based  principally  on  the  fact  that  a  line  of  that 
poem, 

"  To  shield  her  and  shelter  her  from  the  damp  air." 

appears  reflected  and  distorted  in  the  lines  of  the  transla- 
tion, 

"  Blessed !  for  she  shelter'd  him 
From  the  damp  and  chilling  air." 

The  fragment  is  unrhymed,  but  is  otherwise  suggestive  of 
the  irregular  four-stressed  verse  of  Christahel;  beyond  this 
there  is  no  connection  between  the  poems.  The  relation  of 
the  fragment  to  A  Christmas  Carol^  is  quite  evident  and 
does  not  call  for  comment. 

In  a  letter  of  April  23,  1799,  Coleridge  sent  the  lines 
Something  Childish  hut  very  Natural  to  his  wife.  Freili- 
grath  in  1852  was  the  first  to  show  that  the  poem  was  an 
"imitation"  of  Wenn  ich  ein  Voglein  zvdr.  The  first  two 
stanzas  are  a  translation  of  the  German,  the  third  is  a  free 
paraphrase  which  loses  the  simplicity  and  charm  of  its  orig- 
inal. 

^Poet.  Works,  p.  144.      See  Notes  &  Queries,  (Fifth)  VIII  ;   (Sixth)  VIII. 

^Recollections,  etc.,  II,  p.  65. 

^  Poet.  Works,  pp.  144,  620. 

♦  Brandl,  op.  cit.,  pp.   262  :    247.      (Not    fully   translated.) 

^  Poet.  Works,  pp.  150,  624. 

^  Ibid.,  pp.   146,  621. 


IMMEDIATE    RESULTS.  1/ 

Coleridge  translated  a  large  number  of  epigrams'  by  Les- 
sing  and  other  German  writers.  The  original  poems  writ- 
ten in  Germany  are  of  no  great  importance.  His  Lines 
Written  in  the  Album  at  Elbingerode,  though  not  a  poor 
poem,  is  distinctly  inferior  to  the  prose  narrative  of  the  tour. 
In  Home-Sick,  and  The  Day-Drcani  he  expressed  his  intense 
yearning  to  rejoin  his  family  and  friends.  Two  brief  epi- 
taphs, On  an  Infant,  complete  the  list.  Compared  to 
Wordsworth's  achievement  in  the  uncomfortable  retreat  at 
Goslar,  the  quality  and  extent  of  Coleridge's  work  are  dis- 
appointing and  plainly  indicative  of  his  declining  interest 
in  poetry. 

When  Coleridge  returned  to  England  in  July,  1799,  he 
projected  a  vast  hexameter  epic  on  Mahomet  and  sought 
Southey's  collaboration.  The  latter  composed  over  a  hun- 
dred verses  for  the  epic ;  Coleridge  probably  wrote  only  the 
fourteen  lines"  now  printed  with  his  poems.  The  proposed 
"Life  of  Lessing"  was  continually  being  postponed.^  In 
July,  1800,  he  expected  to  have  the  "Introduction"  in  press 
before  Christmas;  by  October  nothing  had  been  done. 
Finally,  in  March,  1801,  Southe>^  wrote:  "Must  Lessing 
wait  for  the  Resurrection  before  he  receives  a  new  life?" 
Four  years  later  Southey*  informed  William  Taylor  that, 
although  Coleridge  had  made  ample  collection  for  the  work, 
nothing  was  ever  written. 

About  January,  1800,  a  brief  correspondence  between 
Coleridge  and  Taylor  took  place.  Coleridge  called  Taylor's 
attention  to  the  statue  of  Burger  which  had  been  erected  in 
Gottingen  and  mentioned  the  significant  correspondence  be- 
tween Wordsworth  and  himself  in  Germany  on  the  merits 

'  Ibid.,  pp.  443-453- 
"^  Poet.  Works,  p.  139. 

3  See  Letters,  I,  p.  321  ;  Life  and  Corres.  of  R.  Southey,  II,  pp.  36,  Z7,  40; 
Cottle's  Reminiscences,  pp.  319,  324. 
*  Life  and  Corres.,  II,  p.  139. 
5  Robberds,  Memoir  of  W.  T.,  II,  75-76. 


15  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

of  Biirger,  his  Lenore,  and  Taylor's  version  of  the  poem.' 
He  did  not  regard  Burger  as  a  great  poet,  but  thought  that 
he  possessed  some  of  the  qualities  which  Wordsworth  denied 
to  him. 

At  the  end  of  February,  1800,  Coleridge  urged  Southey 
to  edit  a  "History  of  Universal  Literature"  and  volunteered 
to  write  a  chapter  on  German  poetry  for  it.^  In  the  same 
letter,  he  made  the  first  definite  mention  of  the  greatest 
memorial  of  his  interest  in  German  literature — his  trans- 
lation of  Schiller's  Wallenstcin — an  undertaking  of  such 
importance  as  to  warrant  its  consideration  apart  from  the 
trifles  and  fragments  that  represent  the  remainder  of  his 
translations  from  the  German. 

"^  Ibid.,  I,  pp.  294,  313,  318-321.  Cf.  Brandl,  pp.  252:  239.  This  is  appar- 
ently the  only  passage  where  Coleridge  made  a  definite  criticism  of  Lenore. 
His  lack  of  enthusiasm  detracts  from  its  suggested  influence. 

*  Letters,  I,  p.  331. 


THE  WALLENSTEIN  TRANSLATION    (1800). 

According  to  a  persistent  tradition  for  which  Gilhrian^ 
appears  to  be  responsible,  Coleridge  shut  himself  up  in  his 
lodgings  in  Buckingham  Street,  and  after  six  weeks'  dili- 
gent application  to  his  task,  produced  his  remarkable  Wal- 
lenstein  translation.  Like  so  many  other  literary  traditions, 
the  present  one  is  not  substantiated  by  the  facts;  yet  it  is 
more  easily  explained  than  Professor  Saintsbury's  recent 
misstatement-  that  the  U^allcnstcin  translation  was  begun  in 
Germany. 

Campbell-^  interpreted  Coleridge's  remark  (in  a  letter  of 
December  25,  1799)  that  he  gave  his  "mornings  to  book- 
sellers' compilations"  as  evidence  that  he  began  to  trans- 
late WaUcnstcin  before  the  end  of  1799;  but  Coleridge's 
more  explicit  reference  to  these  compilations  in  a  letter'* 
written  during  January,  1800,  proves  that  he  did  not  have 
WaUcnstcin  in  mind.  Coleridge  mentioned  Schiller's  plays 
for  the  first  time  in  a  letter^  to  Southey  on  February  28, 
1800,  and  as  he  exchanged  frequent  letters  with  Southey 
about  that  time,  we  are  perhaps  justified  in  the  assumption 
that  the  translation  was  begun  shortly  before  that  date; 
otherwise  it  would  have  been  mentioned  in  a  previous  letter. 

Coleridge  was  living  at  21  Buckingham  Street  when  he 
began  the  WaUcnstcin;  but  on  March  17,  Charles  Lamb, 
who  then  lived  at  36  Chapel  Street,  wrote:  "I  am  living 
in  a  continuous  feast.  Coleridge  has  been  with  me  now 
for  nigh  three  weeks.  ...  He  is  engaged  in  translations 

1  Gillman,  Life  of  S.  T.  C,  p.  146.  See  also  Traill,  p.  72;  Brandl,  pp. 
271-272:  2S7 ;  and  M.  B.  Benton  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  LXXIV,  p.  99. 

2  Saintsbury,  Short  History  of  English  Literature,  p.  656. 

3  Campbell,  Memoir  of  S.  T.  C.  p.   106. 
♦Cottle,  Reminiscences,  p.   319. 

5  Letters,  I,  p.  331. 

19 


20  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

which  I  hope  will  keep  him  this  month  to  come."^  We  do 
not  know  when  the  "continuous  feast"  came  to  an  end;  a 
month  later  (April  21)  Coleridge  was  with  Wordsworth  at 
Grasmere,  whence  he  wrote  to  Josiah  Wedgwood:  "To- 
morrow morning  I  send  off  the  last  sheet  of  my  irksome, 
soul-wearying  labour,  the  translation  of  Schiller."^  It  is 
thus  apparent  that  the  task  was  accomplished  in  two  months 
or  less.  No  wonder  that  Coleridge  wrote:  "These  cursed 
Plays  play  the  devil  with  me.  I  have  been  writing  from 
morning  till  night,  and  about  half  the  night  too,  and  yet  get 
on  too  slowly  for  the  printer."^ 

The  Piccolomini  was  listed'*  among  the  New  Publications 
in  April ;  The  Death  of  Wallenstcin  was  published  in  June — 
about  the  time  that  the  original  play  was  published  in  Ger- 
many. The  circumstances  under  which  a  part  of  Schiller's 
trilogy  appeared  in  an  English  translation  before  the  orig- 
inal was  published  were  first  clearly  set  forth  by  Professor 
Brandl.  Schiller  wrote  WaUenstein  while  the  Kotzebue 
craze  was  at  its  height  in  London;  there  was  consequently 
a  good  market  in  England  for  German  plays.  Even  before 
Wallenstcin  was  completed,  arrangements  were  made  with 
Bell,  the  English  publisher,  for  a  translation  to  appear  simul- 
taneously with  the  original.  An  attested  copy  (signed  by 
Schiller  on  September  30,  1799)  was  received  by  Bell  in 
November.  Without  communicating  with  either  Schiller 
or  the  German  publisher,  Cotta,  Bell  sold  the  manuscript  to 
the  Messrs.  Longman,  who  placed  it  in  Coleridge's  hands 
for  translation.  Schiller  did  not  learn  of  its  publication 
until  September ;  both  translatc^r  and  publisher  were  un- 
known to  him,  until  his  correspondence  with  Cotta''  afforded 
a  partial  explanation  of  the  somewhat  complicated  pro- 
cedure. 

'  Lamb's  Letters,  ed.  Ainger,  I,  p.  115. 

*  Canii)beirs  Memoir,  p.    112. 
5  Ibid.,  p.  112. 

*  Monthly  Magazine,  IX,  379-380. 

»  Schillcrs  Driefwechsel  mit  Cotta,  pp.  396,  398,  405,  424. 


THE    WALLENSTEIN    TRANSLATION.  21 

The  manuscript  used  by  Coleridge  was  carefully  prepared 
by  Schiller  and  differed  in  some  respects  from  the  text  that 
has  since  become  the  standard.  Freiligrath  made  a  colla- 
tion of  Coleridge's  translation  with  the  manuscript  original, 
and  concluded  that,  with  the  exception  of  a  few  trivial  mis- 
takes, Coleridge  had  rendered  a  faithful  translation.^  In 
the  Preface  to  The  Piccolomini  Coleridge  mentioned  his  in- 
tention of  prefixing  a  "Life  of  Wallenstein "  to  the  transla- 
tion and  likewise  confessed  that  he  had  dilated  the  original 
text  in  two  or  three  short  passages.  An  advertisement  at 
the  end  of  the  volume  announced,  as  in  press.  The  Death  of 
Wallenstein,  also  Wallenstein  s  Camp,  with  an  "Essay  on 
the  Genius  of  Schiller."  Neither  of  the  last  two  ever  ap- 
peared; but  The  Death  of  Wallenstein  was  published  with 
an  important  Preface  which  accounted  for  the  omission  of 
the  prelude,  and  presented  some  interesting  criticism  of 
Schiller's  plays. 

The  Wallenstein  translation  was  unfavorably  received  by 
all  the  literary  reviews.^  The  least  unkind  was  the  Monthly 
Review,  which  called  Coleridge  "the  most  rational  partisan 
of  the  German  theatre  whose  labours  have  come  under  our 
notice."  In  reply  to  this  characterization,  the  poet  sent  a 
sharp  note^  to  the  editor  of  the  review,  disclaiming  all  inter- 
est in  German  drama  and  intimating  that  he  did  not  admire 
Wallenstein  itself.  We  know  that  after  its  publication  Cole- 
ridge called  it  "a  dull,  heavy  play"*  and  spoke  of  the  "un- 
utterable disgust  "'^   which  he  suffered  while  translating  it. 

^  Athenaum,  1861,  I,  pp.  633,  663,  797,  and  II,  p.  284.  In  a  recent  valu- 
able article  on  Coleridge's  Wallenstein-Uebersetsung  (in  Englische  Studien, 
XXXI,  182-239),  Paul  Machule  gives  the  results  of  a  careful  comparison 
of  translation  and  original,  showing  numerous  instances  in  which  Coleridge 
departed,  intentionally  or  otherwise,  from  the  text. 

^Monthly  Mag.,  X,  p.  611  ;  Monthly  Rev.,  XXXIII,  n.  s.,  1 27-1 31  ;  British 
Critic,  XVIII,  542-545;  CriticoJ  Rev.,  XXX,  n.  s.,  175-185- 

'^Monthly  Rev.,  XXXIII,  n.  a.,  p.  336. 

*  Cottle,  Reminiscences,  p.  324. 

^Ibid.,  p.  325. 


2  2  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

But  a  little  later  he  wrote:  "Prolix  and  crowded  and  drag- 
ging as  it  is,  it  is  yet  quite  a  model  for  its  judicious  manage- 
ment of  the  sequence  of  the  scenes."  ' 

After  several  years  had  passed,  Coleridge  held  his  IVallen- 
stein  in  higher  esteem.  He  thanked  Sir  Walter  Scott  for 
quoting  it  with  applause,^  and  told  Allsop'  that  the  transla- 
tion was  "a  specimen  of  his  happiest  attempt,  during  the 
prime  manhood  of  his  intellect,  before  he  had  been  buffetted 
by  adversity  or  crossed  by  fatality."  Notwithstanding 
Coleridge's  failure  to  make  IVallenstein  popular  in  England, 
an  anonymous  translation  of  the  Piccolomini's  {sic)  ap- 
peared* in  London  in  1805,  but  has  thus  far  eluded  the 
bibliographers.  Carlyle  was  unable  to  procure  Coleridge's 
IVallenstein  in  1823-1824  while  writing  his  Life  of  Schiller, 
but  the  original  edition  is  no  longer  a  rarity. 

Coleridge's  translation  has  steadily  grown  in  popular 
favor.  Scott  was  probably  the  first  to  assert  that  it  was  a 
greater  performance  than  the  original — a  rare  tribute  which 
still  obtains  in  the  recent  literary  histories  by  Professor 
Saintsbury*  and  Mr.  Gosse.®  There  is  at  least  one  dis- 
sentient voice  to  Saintsbury's  statement  that  "all  but  the 
Germans  and  some  of  them"  regard  Coleridge's  version  as 
greater  than  Schiller's  original.  John  M.  Robertson,  in  a 
singularly  abusive  essay^  on  Coleridge,  speaks  of  the  "trans- 
lations, which  bulk  so  largely  were  hardly  worth  reprinting 
and  will  certainly  cease  to  be  read  by  Englishmen  before  the 
originals,  despite  Professor  Brandl's  strange  endorsement 
of  the  English  claim,  ascribed  first  to  Scott,  that  Coleridge 
had  improved  on  Schiller." 

>  C.  K.  Paul's  William  Godwin,  II,  p.  8. 

^See  IVorks.  ed.  Shedd,  II,  391-392.  Cf.  Guy  Manncring,  chaps.  Ill  and 
IV. 

'Allsop  Letters,  Conversations,  etc.,  p.  65. 

*  See  British  Critic,  XXV,  684-685  ;  Monthly  Rev.,  L,  n.  s.,  p.  329. 

*  Saintsbury,  A  Short  History  of  English  Literature,  p.  656. 
«  Gosse,  Modern  English  Literature,  p.  284. 

^Robertson,  \'czc  Essays  Tozcard  a  Critical  Method,  p.  t86. 


THE    WALLENSTEIN    TRANSLATION.  2$ 

The  English  version  of  Branch's  "strange  endorsement" 
— a  hteral  translation  of  the  original — reads  as  follows : 
"One  can  understand  the  view  taken  by  the  English  when 
they  maintain  that  Coleridge's  '  Wallenstein '  is  superior  to 
Schiller's.  The  wonder  is  why  they  occupied  twenty  years 
before  arriving  at  that  opinion."  This  appreciation  of  the 
English  point  of  view  does  not  necessarily  imply  its  accep- 
tance by  Professor  Brandl.  Again,  the  Wallcnstein,  far 
from  being  "hardly  worth  reprinting,"  will  always  rank 
among  the  few  accomplished  projects  in  a  life  full  of  plans 
and  visionary  undertakings.  The  least  that  can  justly  be 
claimed  for  it  is  that  it  stands  as  high  as  the  German  version 
in  the  English  reader's  estimation.  The  reader  who  turns 
to  the  original  to  find  greater  dramas  or  a  richer  poetic  treat- 
ment will  be  disappointed.  In  spite  of  Mr.  Robertson's 
strictures,  the  Wallenstein  will  continue  to  be  regarded  as 
one  of  Coleridge's  great  achievements.^ 

'An  edition-de-luxe  of  Coleridge's  Wallenstein  appeared  recently   (1902). 


THE  YEARS  OF  UNREST    (i8ock-i8i6). 

In  the  autumn  of  1800,  Coleridge  wrote  the  second  part 
of  Christabel.  Lamb's  reference^  to  Coleridge's  book,  "that 
drama  in  which  Got-fader  performs,"  has  been  accepted  as 
sufficient  evidence  that  Coleridge  possessed  a  copy  of  the 
1790  Faust-Fragment;  yet  it  is  well  to  remember  that  the 
Prolog  in  Himmcl  is  not  to  be  found  in  the  Fragment.  A 
writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review^  fancied  that  he  saw  Faust 
influence  in  the  metre  and  "wild  unearthly  interest"  of  the 
first  part  of  Christabel.  No  one  has  undertaken  to  substan- 
tiate that  influence;  but  Professor  Brandl^  has  pointed  out 
Lenore  influence  in  Christabel  and  The  Ballad  of  the  Dark 
Ladie.  In  both  poems  there  is  some  ground  for  entertain- 
ing such  a  theory — notably  in  the  characterization  of  Lady 
Geraldine  and  of  the  Dark  Ladie ;  but  the  resemblance  is  at 
best  so  slight  that  no  stress  can  be  laid  upon  it. 

The  metre  of  Christabel  has  been  vaguely  attributed  to 
Faust,  and  to  "mediaeval  German  poetry."*  When  Cole- 
ridge published  the  poem  in  181 6,  he  declared  that  the  metre 
was  not  irregular,  but  was  founded  on  a  new  principle; 
namely,  counting  the  accents  instead  of  syllables.  This 
careless  statement  has  led  to  some  controversy.  Coleridge 
assuredly  knew  that  the  metre  of  Christabel  represented  no 
new  principle.  His  poem.  The  Raven,  was  written  in  the 
same  metre,  and  was  sent  to  The  Morning  Post  in  1 798  with 
a  letter  stating  that  the  poem  must  be  read  in  recitative,  as 
the  second  eclogue  of  Spenser's  Shepherd's  Calendar.^     In 

'  Lamb's  Letters,  ed.  Ainger,  I,  p.  121. 

^Edinburgh  Rev.,  LXI,  146-147. 

''Brandl,  pp.  224:211   and  230:216. 

♦T.  S.   Perry  in  Atlantic  Monthly,  XL,  p.   135. 

^  Poet.  Works,  p.  475. 

24 


THE    YEARS    OF    UNREST.  2$ 

his  Preface  to  The  Death  of  Wallenstcin,  Coleridge  noted 
that  the  same  metre  was  employed  by  Schiller  in  his  prelude. 
Whatever  may  be  the  analogy  between  the  metre  of  Christa- 
bel  and  German  Kniittelvers,  it  is  evident  that  Coleridge 
was  thoroughly  familiar  with  the  irregularly  four-stressed 
line — the  so-called  "doggerel  tetrameter" — in  our  older  lit- 
erature, and  that  there  is  no  ground  for  referring  his  use  of 
that  metre  to  a  direct  German  influence. 

Coleridge  at  first  declared^  that  he  would  not  publish  the 
letters  descriptive  of  his  German  tour;  yet,  toward  the  end 
of  i8cJD,  he  made  several  references^  to  such  a  volume  and 
spoke  of  it  as  "in  the  printer's  hands."  Of  course,  it  did 
not  appear.  During  the  next  few  years  of  struggling  and 
distress,  he  determined  to  devote  the  remainder  of  his  life 
to  metaphysics ;  at  the  same  time  he  devised  various  projects 
to  satisfy  his  immediate  needs.  In  1802  he  undertook  a 
translation  of  Gessner's  Der  Erste  Schiifer,  wrote^  to  Wil- 
liam Sotheby  on  July  19,  that  he  had  translated  the  First 
Book  into  530  lines  of  blank  verse  and  that  the  Second  Book 
would  be  a  hundred  lines  less.  A  month  later  he  wrote  that 
he  had  finished  the  translation,  and  that  the  publisher  could 
have  a  copy  at  any  time  after  a  week's  notice.  Nothing 
more  is  heard  of  it;  and  apparently  no  copy  was  found 
among  Coleridge's  papers.  About  the  same  time*  he  pro- 
posed to  translate  Voss's  Idylls  into  English  hexameters,  but 
nothing  came  of  the  project. 

In  September,  1802,  Coleridge's  Hymn  before  Sunrise  in 
the  Vale  of  Chamoiini  was  printed  in  The  Morning  Post, 
accompanied  by  a  note^  which  would  lead  the  reader  to  sup- 
pose that  the  verses  had  been  composed  at  Chamouni.     At 

1  Letters,  I,  p.  317. 

^  Ibid.,  I,  pp.  337  and  342;  also  Cottle,  Reminiscences,  p.  327. 
^Letters,  I,  pp.  369-372,376-378,  397- 
*Ibid.,  I,  p.  398. 

5  Max  Forster,  in  The  Academy,  XLIX,  529-530,  showed  that  this  note 
was  a  free  translation  of  the  authoress'  note  to  the  original  poem. 


26  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

no  time  did  Coleridge  acknowledge  his  very  evident  indebt- 
edness to  Frederike  Brim's  Chamoimy  beym  Sonnenauf- 
gange.  The  plagiarism  was  first  pointed  out  by  De  Quincey^ 
shortly  after  Coleridge's  death,  and  acknowledged  by  Henry 
Nelson  Coleridge,^  who,  however,  denied  any  "ungenerous 
wish"  on  Coleridge's  part  to  conceal  the  obligation.  He 
continued  :  "The  words  and  images  that  are  taken  are  taken 
bodily  and  without  alteration,  and  not  the  slightest  art  is 
used  ...  to  disguise  the  fact  of  any  community  between 
the  two  poems."  Dykes  Campbell  has  well  said"'  that  this 
excuse  would  have  been  fair,  though  hardly  sufficient,  if 
Coleridge  had  borrowed  from  Goethe  or  Schiller;  in  this 
case  he  was  imitating  an  authoress  of  obscure,  almost  local, 
reputation.  Coleridge  expanded  the  poem  to  more  than 
four  times  its  original  length,  and  even  De  Quincey  in  bring- 
ing the  charge  of  plagiarism  admitted  that  the  poet  had 
"created  the  dry  bones  of  the  German  outline  into  the  full- 
ness of  life."  The  acknowledgment  of  his  indebtedness 
would  in  no  wise  have  detracted  from  the  merit  of  his  per- 
formance; but  its  intentional  omission  precludes  the  possi- 
bility of  offering  a  satisfactory  explanation  of  the  poet's  mo- 
tive. 

The  next  few  years  of  Coleridge's  life  were  full  of  sor- 
row. His  trip  to  Malta  and  Rome  (1804-1806)  is  as  yet 
an  obscure  chapter  in  his  biography.  At  Rome  he  met 
Ludwig  Tieck  for  the  first  time.  Upon  his  return  he  made 
arrangements  for  a  course  of  lectures,  which,  after  some 
delay,  was  delivered  during  the  spring  of  1808.  From  the 
meagre  reports  of  these  lectures  preserved  by  Crabb  Robin- 
son,* Professor  Brandl  detected  the  influence  of  Herder's 
Idecn  zur  Philosophic  der  Gcschichtc,  of  Kant's  Kritik  der 
Urthcilskraft,    and    of    the    Hanibnrgischc    Dnimaturgie; 

'  Tait's  Edinburgh  Mag.,  September,   1834. 

«  Preface  to  Table  Talk  (1835).     See  also  Works.  VI,  p.  245. 

'Poet.  Works,  p.  630.     Also  Memoir,  p.  140,  n.   i. 

*  Diary,  I,  pp.  171-172.     See  Works,  IV.,  pp.  220-227. 


THE    YEARS    OF    UNREST.  2/ 

thoui^h  this  indebtedness  was  not  so  definitely  emphasized 
in  the  German  text  as  in  Lady  Eastlake's  translation. ' 
Coleridge  may  possibly  have  been  indebted  to  Kant's  Meta- 
physik  der  Sitten  for  his  remarks  on  the  education  of  chil- 
dren. He  evidently  drew  from  Schiller's  Ueber  naive  und 
sentimentalise  he  Dichtung,  and  in  one  lecture  followed  Her- 
der's Kalligone  so  closely  that  Robinson's  notes  "read  al- 
most like  an  index  to  the  first  chapter  of  that  work." 

During  the  summer  of  1808  Coleridge  announced"  that 
he  w^as  engaged  upon  a  "very  free  translation  with  large 
additions,  etc..  of  the  masterly  work  for  which  poor  Palm 
was  murdered."  The  work  that  caused  Palm's  martyrdom 
was  the  anti-Napoleonic  pamphlet,  Deutschland  in  seiner 
tiefsten  Ernicderung;  but  Coleridge  evidently  referred  to 
Ernst  Moritz  Arndt's  Geist  der  Zeit  which  was  written  at 
the  same  time  (1806)  against  Napoleon.  In  1810  Cole- 
ridge declared'  that  the  latter  work  had  been  delivered  to 
him  for  translation,  "under  authority  of  one  of  the  Royal 
Family";  that  when  he  was  "ready  for  the  press,"  he  in- 
formed the  bookseller  who  had  sent  the  volume,  but  he 
received  no  answer.  A  translation  by  P.  W[ill]  entitled 
Spirit  of  the  Times  appeared  in  1808;  but  what  has  become 
of  Coleridge's  translation  ?  Would  the  translator  of  a  work 
of  over  four  hundred  pages  cast  it  aside,  simply  because 
his  first  letter  brought  no  response  from  a  bookseller?  In 
the  absence  of  further  information,  we  must  add  this  title 
to  the  list  of  Coleridge's  projected  works  which  Joseph 
Cottle*  drew  up  with  perhaps  not  the  best  intentions,  but 
which  is  far  from  being  exhaustive. 

Between  March,  1809,  and  June,  18 10,  Coleridge  pub- 
lished at  very  irregular  intervals  his  literary  and  political 
Aveekly,  The  Friend,  which  is  now  best  known  in  the  "rifac- 

J  Brandl,  pp.  316-317  :  296-298. 

^Letters,  II,  p.  530. 

^Essays  on  his  Own  Times,  II,  p.  670,  note. 

^  Cottle,  Reminiscences,  p.  347. 


28  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

ciamento"  prepared  in  1818.  The  "literary  amusements"' 
used  by  Coleridge  to  relieve  the  more  serious  essays  are  of 
some  interest  in  the  present  connection.  At  the  first  "land- 
ing place"  Coleridge  related  the  good  old  story  of  the  ap- 
pearance of  the  arch-fiend  to  Luther  on  the  Wartburg.  A 
writer  in  the  Edinburgh  Review  (1835)  insisted^  that  Cole- 
ridge had  plagiarized  this  incident  from  Goethe's  Faust. 
Professor  BrandP  endorsed  the  claim,  declaring  that  Cole- 
ridge reproduced  the  setting  of  the  Stiidirzimmer,  "uncere- 
moniously" substituted  Luther  for  Faust  and  the  devil  in 
general  for  Mephistopheles  in  particular.  Even  a  super- 
ficial comparison  of  Coleridge's  words  with  the  cited  scene 
in  Faust  will  reveal  the  fact  that  whatever  resemblances 
exist  between  them  are  essential  and  in  no  wise  peculiar  to 
Coleridge's  version  of  the  time-honored  tradition.  Both 
Luther  and  Faust  are  studying  the  Bible  by  a  midnight 
lamp  in  a  chamber  and  to  each  a  devil  appears;  beyond  that 
there  is  no  similarity  between  the  two. 

At  the  second  "landing-place,"  Coleridge  related  the  har- 
rowing story  of  Maria  Eleonora  Schdning,  the  daughter  of 
a  "Nuremberg  wire-drawer."  He  wrote:  "The  account 
was  published  in  the  city  in  which  the  event  took  place,  and 
in  the  same  year  I  read  it,  when  I  was  in  Germany,  and  the 
impression  made  on  my  memory  was  so  deep,  that  though 
I  relate  it  in  my  own  language  and  with  my  own  feelings, 
and  in  reliance  on  the  fidelity  of  my  recollection,  I  dare 
vouch  for  the  accuracy  of  the  narration  in  all  important 
particulars."  Southey^  regarded  the  story  as  the  work  of 
"some  German  horrorist,"  but  Coleridge  insisted*  that  the 
facts  had  been  confirmed.  Besides  this  story,  the  Second 
Landing-place  contained  the  two  descriptions,  Christmas 
ivithin  Doors  in  the  North  of  Germany  and  Christmas  out 

^Edinburgh  Rev.,  LXI,  p.   147. 

^Brandl,  pp.  325  :  305. 

'Knight,  Memorials  of  Coleorton,  II,  pp.  87-88. 

*  Letters,  II,  p.  555. 


THE    YEARS    OF    UNREST.  29 

of  Doors,  both  rewritten  from  letters  sent  from  Ratzeburg 
in  1799.  Satyranes  Letters  appeared  in  the  original  Friend 
but  were  omitted  in  1818  as  they  had  been  introduced  into 
Biographia  Literaria  ( 1 8 1 7 ) . 

Crabb  Robinson  became  personally  acquainted  with  Cole- 
ridge in  November,  1810,  and  from  that  date  his  Diary  con- 
tains numerous  interesting  records*  of  Coleridge's  critical 
remarks  upon  German  authors  and  philosophers.  Robinson 
probably  attended  the.  whole  series  of  Coleridge's  1811-12 
lectures ;  but  the  selections  thus  far  printed  from  his  volu- 
minous diaries  do  not  mention  all  of  them.  Professor  , 
BrandP  emphasized  Coleridge's  indebtedness  to  Jean  Paul 
throughout  the  first  eight  lectures;  though  Coleridge  him- 
self declared/ that  he  did  not  see  Paul's  Vorschiile  der  Aes- 
thctik  before  181 7.  In  the  ninth  lecture^  Coleridge  said: 
"Yesterday  afternoon  a  friend  left  a  book  for  me  by  a 
German  critic,  of  which  I  have  only  had  time  to  read  a  small 
part;  but  what  I  did  read  I  approved,  and  I  should  be  dis- 
posed to  applaud  the  work  much  more  highly,  were  it  not 
that  in  so  doing  I  should,  in  a  manner,  applaud  myself. 
The  sentiments  and  opinions  are  coincident  with  those  to 
which  I  gave  utterance  in  my  lectures  at  the  Royal  Institu- 
tion. It  is  not  a  little  wonderful  that  so  many  ages  have 
elapsed  since  the  time  of  Shakespeare,  and  that  it  should 
remain  for  foreigners  first  to  feel  truly  and  to  appreciate 
justly  his  mighty  genius."  The  "friend"  v^^as  evidently  ^ 
Robinson,  and  the  book  was  August  von  Schlegel's  Vorle-  \\ 
siingcn  iiher  drmnatische  Knnst  und  Litteratur,  which  had 
recently  appeared.  At  that  time  Coleridge  did  not  hesitate 
to  bestow  even  extravagant  praise^  upon  Schlegel's  criti- 
cism; in  1818,  under  the  stress  of  the  charge  of  plagiarism, 
he  retracted  some  of  the  statements  made  in  1S11-12. 

'  Diary,  I,  pp.   195,  244,  etc. 
"Brandl,  pp.  334-340:316-321. 
^Letters,   II,  p.   683. 
*  Lectures,  ed.  T.  Ashe,  pp.  126-127. 
5  Works,  IV,  p.  479. 


30  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge's  attitude  toward  Goethe  appeared  inexplicable 
to  Robinson.  He  recorded  that  Coleridge  ''conceded  to 
Goethe  universal  talent,  but  felt  a  want  of  moral  life  to  be 
the  defect  of  his  poetry,"^  and  subsequently  that  "Coleridge 
denied  merit  to  'Torquato  Tasso'  .  .  .  adducing  at  the 
same  time  the  immoral  tendency  of  Goethe's  works." ' 
However  in  August,  1812,  Robinson  read^  to  Coleridge  a 
number  of  scenes  out  of  the  new  Faiist  and  'Mie  now  ac- 
knowledged the  genius  of  Goethe"  as  never  before.  At 
the  same  time,  he  regarded  Goethe's  want  of  religion  and 
enthusiasm  as  an  irreparable  defect. 

It  may  have  been  Southey  or  Byron  who  suggested  to  the 
publisher  Murray  that  Coleridge  should  be  invited  to  trans- 
late Faust  into  English.  In  August,  1814,  the  proposal 
reached  Coleridge  indirectly  (through  Robinson  and  Charles 
Lamb),  and  the  poet  wrote  a  long  letter*  to  Murray,  deplor- 
ing the  necessity  of  bringing  his  intellect  to  the  market,  but 
expressing  a  desire  to  attempt  the  translation,  and  likewise 
a  translation  of  Voss's  Liiise  as  soon  as  he  learned  the  pub- 
lisher's terms.  He  also  mentioned  that  he  would  need  all 
of  Goethe's  works  to  prepare  the  "preliminary  critical  es- 
say." Murray  offered  Coleridge  one  hundred  pounds  for 
the  translation  and  preliminary  analysis,  and  hoped  that  the 
manuscript  would  be  ready  by  November.  Coleridge  re- 
garded the  offer  as  an  "inadequate  remuneration"  for  the 
work,  but  mentioned  the  terms  upon  which  he  was  willing  to 
undertake  the  work  for  a  hundred  guineas.  Murray's  an- 
swer has  not  been  preserved,  and  there  was  no  further  cor- 
respondence on  the  subject.  Almost  two  decades  later* 
Coleridge  recalled  the  negotiations  and  said  that  he  "never 
put  pen  to  paper  as  a  translator  of  Faust." 

'  Diary,  I,  p.   195. 

■ilbid.,  1,  p.   250. 

»Ibid..  I,  p.  254- 

*  Smiles,  Memoir  of  John  Miimiy,  pp.  297-30 j. 

^IVorhs.  VI,  p.  425.     (Tabic  Talk,  February   16,   1833.) 


THE    YEARS    OF    UNREST.  3 1 

After  the  failure  to  reach  an  understanding  with  Murray, 
Coleridge  devoted  much  of  his  time  to  the  metaphysical 
magnmn  opus  which  was  "to  contain  all  knowledge  and 
proclaim  all  philosophy."  His  play,  Remorse  (1813) — a 
reworking  of  Osorio  with  a  few  interpolated  passages  from 
his  Wallenstein — had  been  successfully  produced.  He  now 
began  his  Biographia  Literaria  and  the  collected  edition  of 
his  poems  which  afterwards  appeared  as  Sibylline  Leaves. 
Both  of  these  were  finished  before  the  end  of  181 5,  though 
they  were  not  published  until  two  years  later.  Next  he 
wrote  his  dramatic  entertainment,  Zapolya,  and,  by  the  aid 
of  Lord  Byron,  arranged  with  Murray  for  the  publication 
of  Christabel.  In  April,  1816,  shortly  before  the  appear- 
ance of  Christabel,  Coleridge  returned  to  London  and  began 
his  long  residence  at  the  home  of  Dr.  Gillman  on  Highgate 
Hill. 


THE  SAGE  OF  HIGHGATE   (1816-1834). 

The  last  period  of  Coleridge's  life  was  mainly  devoted  to 
the  development  of  his  elaborate  philosophical  system, 
though  he  was  constantly  conceiving  literary  projects  that 
were  often  interesting  and  important.  His  suggestion 
(1816)  for  the  establishment  of  a  "review  of  old  books" 
was  carried  out  four  years  later  by  others  in  the  Retrospec- 
tive Review;  similarly,  in  his  proposal  (1816)  to  undertake 
a  periodical^  dealing  with  "the  real  state  and  value  of  Ger- 
man Literature  from  Gellert  and  Klopstock  to  the  present 
year,"  he  anticipated  several  foreign  quarterlies  by  at  least 
a  decade.  The  appearance  of  Biographia  Literaria  and 
Sibylline  Leaves  brought  Coleridge  prominently  forward 
once  more.  Present  interest  in  the  former  centres  in  the 
critique  on  Maturin's  tragedy,  Bertram.  In  the  course  of 
his  denunciation  of  the  extravagant  German  school  which 
Maturin  had  emulated,  Coleridge  paid  sincere  tribute  to  the 
influence  of  Lessing  toward  highest  ideals  of  dramatic  art. 
He  wrote :  "  It  was  Lessing  who  first  introduced  the  name 
and  the  works  of  Shakespeare  to  the  admiration  of  the  Ger- 
mans; and  I  should  not  perhaps  go  too  far,  if  I  add,  that  it 
was  Lessing  who  first  proved  to  all  thinking'  men,  even  to 
Shakespeare's  own  countrymen,  the  true  nature  of  his  ap- 
parent irregularities."  Coleridge  then  proceeded  to  belabor 
Kotzebue  and  the  minor  exponents  of  the  horrific  drama  in 
the  style  in  which  his  own  works  were  often  assailed  in  the 
reviews.  Save  in  this  critique,  there  are  few  references^  to 
German  authors  in  the  Biographia  Literaria.  The  most  in- 
teresting contents  of  the  work  in  this  connection  are  Saty- 
rane's  Letters  and  the  account  of  the  visit  to  Germany. 

'  See  Campbell,  Memoir,  p.   224. 
^li'''orks,  III,  pp.  378.  435.  474,  etc. 

32 


THE    SAGE    OF    HIGHGATE.  33 

In  1817  Luclwig  Tieck  arrived  in  London  and  renewed 
his  acquaintance  with  Coleridge.  He  confessed  to  Crabb 
Robinson'  that  he  had  "no  high  opinion  of  Coleridge's  cri- 
tique" but  admired  his  "glorious  conceptions  about  Shakes- 
peare." Coleridge  gave  Tieck  a  letter^  of  introduction  to 
Southey,  writing  that  as  a  poet,  critic  and  moralist,  Tieck 
stood  next  in  reputation  to  Goethe.  However,  Coleridge 
was  apparently  unacquainted  with  Tieck's  works,  save  Stern- 
hald's  Wandemngen,  which  he  criticized  unfavorably  as  an 
imitation  of  Heinse's  Ardinghello.  '^ 

The  1818  course  of  lectures  was  the  immediate  cause  of 
the  imputed  plagiarism  from  Schlegel.  Coleridge  at  once 
declared  in  his  own  defense  that  his  original  utterances  upon 
Shakespeare  antedated  those  of  Schlegel  and  that  he  had 
established  and  applied  every  principle  of  merit  in  Schlegel's 
work.  *  The  latter  claim  was  wholly  unwarranted  and  can 
be  explained  only  by  the  lecturer's  exaggerated  zeal  in  at- 
tempting to  refute  the  charge.  Coleridge  was  so  embit- 
tered by  the  imputation  that  he  rescinded  a  tribute  which  he 
had  previously  paid  to  German  criticism  and  involved  him- 
self in  a  flat  contradiction.  He  sneered  at  Wordsworth  for 
having  "affirmed  in  print  that  a  German  critic  first  taught 
us  to  think  correctly  concerning  Shakespeare,"^  thus  for- 
getting or  ignoring  the  fact  that  he  himself  had  said  prac- 
tically the  same  thing  in  his  critique  on  Bertram,^  and  still 
earlier  in  the  ninth  lecture  of  the  1811-12  series.  Irrespec- 
tive of  the  Coleridge-Schlegel  controversy,  Wordsworth's 
remark  was  justified  on  the  strength  of  what  Lessing  had 
written    in    his    Litteraturbriefe    and    the    Hamhurgische 

1  Diary,  I,  pp.  360-366. 
^Letters,  II,  pp.  670-671. 
'ilbid.,  II,  pp.  680-684. 
*Warks,  IV,  pp.  17,  457,  etc. 

« Essay   Supplementary  to  the   Preface  to   Wordsworth's  Poems,    (1815). 
See  Poet.  Works  of  Wordsworth,  ed.  Morley,  pp.  867-868. 
^  Works,  III,  p.  557- 


34  SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE. 

Dramaturgie  before  the  other  two  critics  were  born.  Cole- 
ridge evidently  misinterpreted  the  utterance  as  a  tribute  to 
Schlegel  and  was  accordingly  incensed.  Most  critics  will 
agree  w^ith  Sidney  Lee^  that  there  is  "much  to  be  said  for 
Wordsworth's  general  view."  It  is  clear  that  Coleridge  was 
unjust  to  Schlegel  after  the  charge  of  plagiarism  had  been 
brought  against  him;  but  he  could  never  have  made  a  de- 
liberate denial  of  his  obligation  to  Lessing. 

However,  certain  critics^  have  gone  too  far  in  emphasiz- 
ing Lessing's  "discovery"  of  Shakespeare,  and  have  thus 
fostered  the  erroneous  impression  that  Shakespeare  was  for- 
gotten in  England  until  the  Germans  rehabilitated  him  in 
more  than  his  former  glory.  Professor  Korting^  warned 
us  against  a  literal  interpretation  of  Hettner's  term  "Die 
Wiedererweckung  Shakespeare's,"  and  Professor  Mac- 
mechan  has  more  specifically  refuted*  the  statement  in 
Phelps'  English  Romantic  Movement,  concerning  the  neglect 
of  Shakespeare  during  the  Augustan  epoch.  Such  facts  do 
not  detract  from  the  glory  of  German  criticism,  but  are  of 
more  real  service  than  the  unreasonable  claims  of  enthu- 
siasts in  establishing  the  measure  of  its  contribution  to 
Shakespeare's  fame.  Sidney  Lee°  aptly  summarized  the 
matter  in  these  words:  "In  its  inception  the  aesthetic  school 
owed  much  to  the  methods  of  Schlegel  and  other  admiring 
critics  of  Shakespeare  in  Germany.  But  Coleridge  in  his 
Notes  and  Lectures  and  Hazlitt  in  his  Characters  of  Shakes- 
peare's Plays  are  the  best  representatives  of  the  aesthetic 
school  in  this  or  any  other  country." 

There  is  small  probability  of  our  ever  arriving  at  a  satis- 
factory knowledge  of  Coleridge's  exact  indebtedness  to 
Schlegel."     Sara  Coleridge's  edition  of  her  father's  lectures 

'Lee,  Life  of  William  Shakespeare,  pp.  333,  n.   i,  and  344,  n.  i. 

*Herford,  Age  of  Wordsworth,  p.  XXV  ;  Brandl,  pp.  317  :  298. 

'Korting,  Grundriss  der  Gesch.  der  eng.  Lit.  (3d  ed.),  p.  309. 

*  Modern  Language  Notes,  IX,  p.   148. 

6 Lee,  Life  of  Shakcsf^earc.  p.  M3- 

'See  Works,  III.  pp.  xi-xlii  and  VI,  pp.  ::42-2S3. 


THE    SAGE    OF    HIGIIGATE.  35 

supplies  the  parallel  passages  from  Schlegel  in  the  notes,  but 
our  conclusions  must  be  inevitably  biassed  by  our  point  of 
view.  There  is  nothing  incredible  in  the  idea  that  the  two 
critics  developed  their  material  simultaneously  and  without 
any  direct  inter-relation.  Lessing  had  struck  the  key-note 
of  the  new  criticism;  its  development  naturally  followed  in 
a  certain  loosely  defined  method,  whether  at  the  hands  of 
Schlegel  or  Coleridge.  At  the  same  time,  it  is  evident  that 
after  Schlegel's  lectures  came  under  Coleridge's  notice,  the 
latter  did  not  disdain  to  borrow  an  occasional  thought  from 
the  German  critic  without  making  acknowledgment  of  his 
obligation.  Yet  Professor  Herford^  is  hardly  justified  in 
calling  Schlegel  "Coleridge's  master" — an  enviable  title  that 
might  have  been  more  properly  bestowed  upon  Lessing. 

In  1 8 19  Coleridge  was  invited  to  contribute  to  Black- 
wood's Magazine,  but  submitted  nothing  save  his  sonnet 
Fancy  in  Nubibus  (which  was  partly  taken  from  Stolberg's 
An  das  Meer)  and  some  rambling  literary  correspondence^ 
which  promised,  among  other  things,  a  life  of  the  poet 
Holty,  with  specimens  of  his  poems  translated  and  imitated 
in  English  verse.  This  promise  was  broken;  but  during 
1823  Coleridge  began  to  select  the  choice  passages  from  the 
works  of  Archbishop  Leighton,  which,  enriched  with  his 
own  corollaries  and  notes,  appeared  two  years  later  as  Aids 
to  Reflection  and  won  for  him  a  considerable  following 
among  English  and  American  divines.  Notwithstanding 
its  slow  sale,  the  book  reached  an  audience  including  such 
men  as  Julius  Hare,  Frederick  Denison  Maurice  and  John 
Sterling,  whose  influence  was  widespread  and  significant  in 
the  religious  history  of  the  century.  Carlyle,  whose  Life 
of  Schiller  and  translation  of  Wilhelm  Meister  had  won 
him  a  place  in  the  Highgate  circle,  asserted  that  without 
Coleridge  there  would  have  been  no  Tractarian  movement.  ^ 

^  Age  of  Wordsworth,  p.  yy. 
*  See  Works,  IV,  pp.  402-435. 
^  Campbell,  Memoir,  pp.  268-269. 


36  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge's  declining  years  were  crowned  with  a  peace 
which  he  had  not  known  before.  He  labored  diligently  and 
dictated  long  passages  of  his  philosophical  system  to  his 
faithful  disciples.  In  1828  he  accompanied  Wordsworth 
and  his  daughter  on  a  six  weeks'  tour  along  the  Rhine.  ^ 
At  Godesburg  they  met  Niebuhr,  Becker,  August  Schlegel 
and  other  "illuminati"  of  Bonn.  Coleridge  praised  Schle- 
gel's  Shakespeare  translation  and  was  in  turn  complimented 
upon  the  beauty  and  fidelity  of  his  IVallcnstcin  version ;  but 
the  meeting  exerted  no  definite  influence  upon  either  critic. 
Coleridge's  literary  career  was  practically  over  and  he  did 
not  expect  to  find  any  further  stimulus  for  his  philosophical 
labors. 

The  invaluable  Table  Talk  of  the  last  twelve  years,  for 
which  we  are  indebted  to  Henry  Nelson  Coleridge,  records 
many  interesting  criticisms  of  German  writers.  Coleridge 
spoke  highly  of  Fouque's  Undine,^  and  repeated  his  qualified 
appreciation  of  Goethe's  Faust}  He  still  admired  Schiller 
more  than  Goethe,  but  gave  first  place  to  the  "absolutely 
perfect"  prose  style  of  Lessing.*  These  critical  fragments, 
uttered  toward  the  close  of  a  life  teeming  with  many  and 
varied  activities,  reveal  at  once  how  imperfect  Coleridge's 
knowledge  of  German  literature  had  been.  He  had  not  kept 
pace  with  its  development,  as  he  had  not  deemed  it  of  suffi- 
cient importance  for  the  ends  which  he  had  in  view.  His 
immediate  interest  had  shifted  to  the  German  philosophers, 
since  their  writings  were  more  nearly  associated  with  his 
own  great  life-work. 

The  magnum  opus  was  destined  never  to  appear.  After 
the  death  of  Coleridge  in  July,  1834,  his  literary  executor, 
Dr.  Joseph  Henry  Green,  turned  over  the  literary  and  criti- 
cal remains  to  Henry  Nelson  Coleridge,  some  theological 

'  Campbell,  Memoir,  p.  264. 
2  Works,  VI,  p.  325- 
^  Works,  VI,  pp.  421-424. 
<lhid,  VI,  p.  4''5- 


THE    SAGE    OF    HIGHGATE.  3/ 

papers  to  Hare  and  Sterling,  and  undertook  by  himself  the 
heroic  task  of  completing  the  philosophical  system.  He  de- 
voted the  remaining  twenty-eight  years  of  his  life  to  the 
work,  leaving  behind  a  Spiritual  Philosophy  (1865)  which 
clearly  proved  the  futility  of  Coleridge's  desire  to  formulate 
a  comprehensive  system  of  philosophy  to  include  all  knowl- 
edge and  to  interpret  the  teachings  of  previous  thinkers  in 
the  light  of  his  exalted  and  harmonious  scheme  of  Chris- 
tianity. 


THE  GERMAN  INFLUENCE  ON  COLERIDGE. 

Coleridge's  career  presents  one  of  the  most  interesting- 
and  diversified  narratives  in  the  annals  of  English  letters. 
His  wide  intellectual  range,  his  faculty  for  projecting  in- 
numerable visionary  schemes,  and  the  many  inexplicable 
contradictions  in  his  life  combine  to  create  an  elusive  and 
tantalizing  personality,  which  will  not  conform  to  the  usual 
generalizations  of  the  critics.  We  have  so  few  authoritative 
utterances  concerning  his  real  significance  because  so  few 
minds  have  the  comprehensive  training  to  appreciate  fully 
his  power  in  the  varied  fields  of  his  activity. 

His  education,  especially  his  omnivorous  reading,  pre- 
pared him  for  his  desultory  but  productive  career  which  re- 
sulted in  such  rich  contribution  to  our  store  of  the  True  and 
the  Beautiful.  Between  the  "deep  and  sweet  intonations" 
of  the  "inspired  charity-boy"  at  Christ's  Hospital,  and  the 
last  broken  discourses  of  the  "sage  of  Highgate"  stretches 
a  half  century  replete  with  bright  hopes  and  bitter  disap- 
pointments— a  lifetime  of  dreams  and  despair.  Like  many 
other  youthful  enthusiasts,  Coleridge  manifested  an  early 
impulse  to  labor  for  the  amelioration  of  mankind.  The 
pantisocratic  scheme  was  the  first  significant  indication  of 
his  ambition  to  become  a  social  reformer ;  but  the  ardor  of 
its  inception  eventually  subsided  into  a  quiet  recog"nition  of 
its  futility.  About  the  same  time  the  translations  of  Schil- 
ler's early  plays  attracted  his  attention  and  enlisted  his  sym- 
pathies in  the  attack  upon  wrong  and  oppression.  The  lec- 
ture-platform seemed  the  easiest  means  of  approach  to  the 
public  that  Coleridge  longed  to  reach,  but  he  also  wrote  such 
poems  as  Religious  Musings,  which  served  at  once  as  a 
common  vehicle  for  his  radical  theology  and  his  revolution- 
ary tenets. 

38 


THE    GERMAN    INFLUENCE    ON    COLERIDGE.  39 

After  he  became  acquainted  with  Wordsworth  a  great 
change  was  wrought  in  Coleridge's  attitude  toward  poetry. 
Moreover,  the  influence  was  reciprocal;  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  determine  which  of  the  two  profited  most  by  their 
intimacy.  The  Lyrital  Ballads  were  planned,  written  and 
published;  but  the  reviewers  united  in  censuring  the  icono- 
clasts who  had  overthrown  the  almost  defunct  literary  tra- 
ditions to  offer  the  unprepared  public  a  new  ideal  of  poetic 
art. 

Then  followed  the  visit  to  Germany — a  mere  incident  in 
the  life  of  Wordsworth,  but  the  turning  point  in  Coleridge's 
career.  Poetry  had  failed  to  afford  the  desired  influence, 
and  Coleridge  saw  brighter  possibilities  in  a  devotion  to 
metaphysics.  He  gradually  drew  away  from  his  Unitarian 
ism  toward  orthodox  religion  and  from  the  work  of  Lessing 
he  drew  the  stimulus  for  his  own  subsequent  criticism 
Schiller  and  the  rest  of  the  literati  were  near  at  hand,  yet 
he  made  no  attempt  to  see  them.  He  had  gone  to  Germany 
as  a  poet ;  he  returned  as  a  critic  and  philosopher. 

It  is  true  that  Coleridge  was  interested  in  criticism  and 
philosophy  before  his  German  tour,  and  that  he  wrote  beau- 
tiful poetry  after  his  return ;  but  that  fact  makes  the  distinc- 
tion between  the  two  interests  no  less  important.  Scholars 
have  frequently  deplored  the  consequences  of  Coleridge's 
visit  to  Germany.  They  have  declared^  that  his  two  evil 
spirits  were  the  laudanum  bottle  and  his  dreary  German 
metaphysical  books,  and  that  the  latter  were  more  fatal  than 
the  drug.  They  have  condemned^  the  sojourn  at  Gottingen 
as  the  poet's  death-knell.  The  imaginative  mind  of  Francis 
Thompson^  pictured  Coleridge  "submerged  and  feebly  strug- 
gling in  opium-darkened  oceans  of  German  philosophy."' 
Coleridge  himself  thought^  that  he  would  have  done  better 

1  Quarterly  Rev.,  CLXV,  p.  69. 

2  Westminster  Rev.,  CLXV,  p.  528. 
^Academy,  LI,  p.  180. 

^  Works,  III,  p.   152. 


'■\ 


40  SAMUEL  TAYLOR  COLERIDGE. 

by  continuing  "to  pluck  the  flowers  and  reap  the  harvest 
from  the  cuhivated  surface,  instead  of  delving  in  the  un- 
wholesome quicksilver  mines  of  metaphysical  lore."  How- 
ever, the  die  had  been  cast.  Throughout  the  remainder  of 
his  life  he  engendered  much  profound  thought  and  gave 
utterance  to  brilliant  literary  criticism ;  but  rarely  did  he 
sing  in  the  strain  of  Christahel  and  Knbla  Khan. 

Coleridge's  knowledge  of  German  authors  was  very  un- 
even and,  in  spite  of  his  catholicity  of  spirit,  he  failed  to 
grasp  the  real  significance  of  Germany's  literary  revival. 
His  inability  to  understand  the  greatness  of  Goethe  has  been 
variously  explained  by  the  critics ;  but  we  need  scarcely  enu- 
merate the  reasons  that  have  been  suggested  for  that  lack 
of  sympathy  which  even  Crabb  Robinson  failed  to  fathom. 
He  always  acknowledged  Goethe's  "exquisite  taste,"  but 
objected  to  the  impersonal  tone  that  smacked  of  insincerity. 
It  is  vain  to  conjecture  what  Coleridge  might  have  made  of 
Faust  had  he  undertaken  its  translation ;  considering  the  re- 
pugnance with  which  he  completed  Walloistein,  his  dislike 
for  Goethe  would  not  have  prevented  him  from  producing  a 
Faust  that  would  have  been  in  every  respect  worthy  of  its 
original. 

/  Coleridge's  indebtedness  to  German  writers  was  twofold, 
(embracing  his  literary  obligation  to  Lessing,  Schiller,  and 
( Schlegel,  and  his  philosophical  affiliations  with  Kant,  Fichte, 
and  Schelling.  The  influence  of  Gessner,  Burger,  and  even 
of  Jean  Paul  was  comparatively  slight.  How  much  of  his 
criticism  Coleridge  owed  to  Schlegel  is  difficult  to  deter- 
mine. Under  the  stress  of  the  charge  of  plagiarism,  Cole- 
ridge asserted  an  independence  of  Schlegel  which  he  could 
only  partly  substantiate.  On  the  other  hand,  in  developing 
the  general  ideas  indicated  by  Lessing,  both  critics  would 
naturally  coincide  in  certain  utterances,  with  no  nearer  in- 
terdependence than  their  common  obligation  to  Lessing. 

Schiller's   influence   belonged   principally   to   Coleridge's 


THE    GERMAN    INFLUENCE    ON    COLERIDGE.  4 1 

earlier  years  and  suffered  a  speedy  eclipse.  This  revulsion 
of  feeling  is  easily  explained  by  the  fact  that  Coleridge  knew 
only  the  Schiller  of  the  revolutionary  dramas,  and  before  he 
visited  Germany  he  had  passed  into  a  more  conservative 
stage  of  existence.  Lessing  exerted  the  strongest  of  the 
purely  literary  influences  on  Coleridge,  affording  him  a  sub 
stantial  basis  for  his  subsequent  Shakespeare  criticism.  The 
influence  of  Kant,  Fichte,  and  Schelling  is  manifest  through- 
out Coleridge's  philosophical  utterances.  At  times  he 
sought  to  deny  any  indebtedness  to  German  thinkers,  but 
his  familiarity  with  their  principal  works  is  beyond  ques- 
tion. 

It  is  not  a  difficult  task  to  read  a  great  amount  of  German 
influence  into  Coleridge's  work  by  insisting  on  the  mislead- 
ing doctrine  that  general  similarity  of  thought  necessarily 
implies  direct  connection.  The  success  of  a  study  in  com- 
parative literature  on  that  basis  is  limited  only  by  the  crit- 
ic's store  of  reading  and  his  memory.  If  he  is  intimately 
acquainted  with  the  respective  literatures,  he  can  cite  a 
greater  number  of  those  "deadly  parallels"  that  are  so 
rarely  fatal.  Acting  upon  Solomon's  terse  observation  on 
the  antiquity  of  all  things,  he  can  trace  the  genealogy  of 
literary  thefts  to  the  first  moments  of  recorded  time.  For- 
tunately, all  criticism  does  not  follow  the  road  that  leads  to 
the  primeval  chaos.  At  the  unveiling  (1885)  of  Thorney- 
croft's  bust  of  Coleridge  in  Westminster  Abbey,  James  Rus- 
sell Lowell  alluded^  to  Coleridge's  critical  obligations  to 
Lessing,  Schiller  and  Schlegel,  but  emphasized  the  indebted- 
ness to  his  own  sympathetic  and  penetrative  imagination. 
There  is  a  healthy  tone  in  the  criticism  that  pays  homage 
to  the  thought-creatng  power  of  the  gifted  mind,  and  does 
not  insist  upon  a  literary  influence  without  ample  cause. 

Coleridge's  intellectual  equipment  was  the  result  of  long 
years  of  study  and  meditation,  resulting  in  a  liberal  and 

'  Literary  and  Political  Addresses,  p.  71. 


42  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

comprehensive  culture.  He  was  thoroughly  familiar  with 
English  writers,  notably  the  Elizabethan  dramatists  and  the 
churchmen  of  the  seventeenth  century;  he  read  ancient  and 
modern  philosophy,  the  classics,  German,  and  Italian ;  finally, 
his  pamphlets  and  newspaper  articles  reveal  his  live  interest 
in  current  affairs  and  his  intimate  knowledge  of  contem- 
porary politics.  In  return  for  what  literature  had  done  for 
him,  Coleridge  gave  the  world  a  fair  measure  of  poetry  that 
stands  unsurpassed  in  our  language  for  its  exquisite  melody 
and  rhythm ;  a  corpus  of  literary  criticism  as  vital  and  influ- 
ential as  any  that  an  English  mind  has  evolved ;  and  a  dis- 
jointed but  inspiring  attempt  at  a  system  of  Christian  philos- 
ophy which  brought  some  of  the  profoundest  theologians  of 
England  and  America  into  the  ranks  of  his  disciples.  How- 
ever much  we  may  lament  the  physical  and  moral  stagnation 
that  prevented  him  from  achieving  more,  that  which  was 
accomplished  must  ever  command  our  admiration. 

It  is  true  that  Coleridge's  life  was  a  career  of  unfulfilled 
plans.  The  philosophical  scheme,  to  which  he  devoted  so 
many  precious  years,  is  an  incompletable  fragment ;  his  crit- 
ical utterances  are  disjointed  and  several  of  his  best  poems 
are  unfinished.  The  same  fatality  pursued  his  numerous 
plans;  many  were  not  even  begun.  In  his  relations  with 
German  literature  alone,  Coleridge  projected  sixteen  works, 
only  one  of  which — the  IVallenstein  translation — was  ever 
achieved ;  and  even  in  that  instance  he  abandoned  the  Pre- 
lude and  the  proposed  lives  of  Wallenstein  and  Schiller. 

Had  Coleridge  written  a  tithe  of  the  works  that  he  plan- 
ned, he  would  rank  to-day  as  the  peer  of  Goethe  for  his 
catholicity  of  spirit  and  range  of  intellectual  interest.  The 
present  generation  refuses  to  accept  Coleridge  at  the  rating 
of  his  intimate  contemporaries ;  even  the  testimony  of  Lamb, 
Wordsworth,  Southey,  De  Quincey,  Robinson,  Hazlitt  and 
the  rest  is  insufficient  to  counteract  the  influence  of  his  own 


THE    GERMAN    INFLUENCE    ON    COLERIDGE.  43 

apparent  lethargy.  Soiithey^  was  prophetic  when  he  de- 
clared :  "  All  other  men  whom  I  have  ever  known  are  mere 
children  to  him,  and  yet  all  is  palsied  by  a  total  want  of 
moral  strength.  He  will  leave  nothing  behind  him  to  jus- 
tify the  opinions  of  his  friends  to  the  world."  Again,  some- 
what later  he  wrote :  "It  vexes  and  grieves  me  to  the  heart 
that  when  he  is  gone,  as  go  he  will,  nobody  will  believe  what 
a  mind  goes  with  him — how  infinitely  and  ten  thousand- 
thousand-fold  the  mightiest  of  his  generation." 

Coleridge  was  not  only  unappreciated  by  the  public  in  his 
own  day,  but  is  largely  misunderstood  even  now.  Our  mod- 
ern taste  exalts  a  few  inspired  poems  and  certain  luminous 
critical  utterances — the  rest  is  neglected.  Need  we  be  re- 
minded that  a  critic^  of  Coleridge's  time  declared  that  Chris- 
tabel  was  fit  only  for  the  inmates  of  Bedlam ;  that  the  publi- 
cation of  such  a  "rhapsody  of  delirium"  was  "an  insult 
offered  to  the  public  understanding"  ?  Yet  in  our  day  many 
go  to  the  opposite  extreme  and  see  nothing  beyond  the  few 
great  poems.  It  is  no  reflection  on  the  merits  of  The 
Ancient  Mariner  to  refuse  assent  to  the  recent  question : 
"Who  would  not  give  all  of  Coleridge's  prose  writings  for 
another  twenty  pages  of  poetry  like  The  Ancieyit  Mariner?"^ 
Nor  does  it  seem  too  extravagant  to  deprecate  the  reckless 
and  flippant  criticism  ^  that  tells  us  that  Coleridge  "had  the 
impudence  to  die  in  his  sixty-third  year  with  nothing  to 
show  for  his  life  but  a  tiny  handful  of  poems,  some  of  which 
he  had  not  even  the  grace  to  finish."  To  critics  of  this 
stamp,  Coleridge  is  merely  an  unfortunate  visionary,  who 
produced  a  few  beautiful  rhythmical  fragments  and  spent 
the  rest  of  his  life  in  compiling  dreary  metaphysical  books. 

The  story  of  Coleridge's  intellectual  development  awaits 
the  worthy  pen  of  a  critic  whose  conclusions  will  stem  effec- 

'  Robberds,  Memoir  of  William  Taylor,  I,  pp.  455,  462. 

*  Monthly  Mag.,  XLVI,  p.  408. 

2  Dawson,  Makers  of  Modern  Poetry,  p.  80. 

*  Le  Gallienne,  Retrospective  Reviews,  II,  p.  58. 


44  SAMUEL    TAYLOR    COLERIDGE. 

lively  tlie  tide  of  biassed  and  superficial  criticism.  All  the 
material  for  such  an  analysis  has  not  yet  been  given  to  the 
world.  Many  of  his  letters  are  unpublished,  the  prose 
works  are,  for  the  most  part,  badly  edited,  and  he  still  lacks 
a  biography  to  serve  as  a  fitting  memorial  of  his  greatness. 
The  last  statement  must  not  be  interpreted  as  a  reflecrion 
upon  the  merits  of  the  trustworthy  memoir  by  the  late  James 
Dykes  Campbell,  whose  exactness  and  untiring  industry  in 
scholarly  research  have  thrown  light  on  many  obscure  pass- 
ages in  Coleridge's  career.  The  needed  biography  will  ex- 
ceed the  scope  of  Campbell's  narrative;  it  will  describe  in 
more  detail  Coleridge's  development  and  his  influence  upon 
his  intellectual  and  artistic  environment.  It  is  this  biog- 
raphy that  we  now  await  from  the  pen  of  the  poet's  grand- 
son. Mr.  Ernest  Hartley  Coleridge. 

Criticism  has  attempted  to  estimate  Coleridge's  greatness 
from  diverse  points  of  view.  As  a  philosopher,  he  enjoys 
an  honor  fostered  by  the  praise  of  such  eminent  divines  as 
Hare,  Irving,  Maurice,  Kingsley,  and  Marsh.  His  fame  as 
a  critic  has  been  generally  recognized  since  the  days  when 
large  audiences  flocked  to  the  rooms  of  the  London  Philo- 
sophical Society  to  enjoy  his  dreamy,  rhapsodic  eloquence. 
Miss  Wylie's  Evolution  of  Modern  English  Criticism  does 
justice  to  Coleridge's  achievement  in  establishing  the  highest 
critical  traditions  in  our  literature.  As  a  poet,  Coleridge 
has  been  lauded  in  the  golden  stream  of  Mr.  Swinburne's 
prose,  and  eulogy  cannot  expect  to  transcend  the  ornate  and 
exuberant  fancy  of  that  appreciation.  Approach  Coleridge 
from  what  point  of  view  we  will,  whether  as  philosopher, 
critic,  or  poet,  we  find  him  to  be  one  of  the  most  suggestive 
and  stimulating  personalities  of  his  century.  The  infirmi- 
ties of  the  man  belong  to  the  past  and  lie  beyond  our  judg- 
ment ;  but  the  glorious  heritage  is  ours,  to  honor  and  esteem 
as  best  we  can.  -^^vJTr 

UN, 


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